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by Xuzz
5637 days ago
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He makes a few good points: Linux has had this for years, and they have done quite a good job with it (especially with the Ubuntu Software Center). But, as he says: Linux only has 1% market share. Mac OS X has almost 10% market share. If Linux has used this concept to good effect for years, why is it a bad thing that it's now being exposed to a more mainstream computing audience? |
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* Unable to install apps that aren't App Store Approved(TM)
* Unable to run commands as root
* Unable to access the filesystem
Basically, the author fears OS X becoming iOS.
There's a lot of speculation about what OS X will become, but there is only one sure bet: It will follow the money.
Consumers -- in general -- have been proven not to care about things like "open". If you ask Joe Blow Android owner about why he/she likes their phone, they might tell you that they like how it's "open", among other things, but I'd lay you odds that they don't know what that really means. And you can bet that most people are not rooting their Android phones.
I'm not talking about your friends. I'm talking about your mom's friends; your dad's friends; your cousins' friends. The ones who can't figure out how to update their anti-virus. They don't care about open, root access, or filesystems. They care about the specific task they want to achieve: to be entertained (music/movies), have some fun (games), do some work (productivity), or communicate with others (email/social networking).
These are the people that will drive the direction of OS X and Windows. But don't freak out just yet. There will always be another layer to the computing world. Apple builds a very small set of core iOS apps. A large part of iOS's success is owed to independent developers. Not big companies. Independents. The Mac has many popular independent developers, and Apple knows this. There will always be an "open" Mac, in the sense that there will always be a Mac you can develop on, if only by neccessity.
Let's consider what happens if I'm wrong. Even though we're (hackers) a tiny part of the market, we're not a "small" group by any measure. Imagine that all the talented people who like using OS X for development are suddenly forced to use Linux. So, you have this large group of talented people, and all of the sudden their platform is yanked out from under them. Where do they go? They go to the platform that solves their needs. They go to the next thing. That thing would be Linux.
I don't believe there will be any rug-yanking going on. I think the process will be much slower, and many won't even notice, but I do think we'll start to see more hackers moving to Linux as Apple develops their "walled garden" approach for OS X. That's not a bad thing. It's going to bring a lot of talent over to the Linux side of things, and that's gotta be a good thing.